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Beware of debt relief scams that offer ‘pie-in-the-sky promises’

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:27:32 GMT

TORONTO — For anyone facing spiralling debt and a falling credit rating, a debt relief consultant’s picture-perfect solution could bring a glimmer of hope. But experts say if their promises seem too good to be true, they probably are.“Anyone who makes a promise that they can eliminate your debt or boost your credit score is making pie-in-the-sky promises because it’s just not a possibility to do it,” said Brandon Smith, a licensed insolvency trustee with Ira Smith Trustee & Receiver Inc. in Vaughan, Ont.Smith, who has been in the business for almost two decades, said some debt relief consultants are misleading financially strained consumers with rosy pitches about debt relief programs and charging them for services they aren’t not qualified to carry out. The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy (OSB), a federal agency which administers the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, issued a consumer alert last month for debt relief scams targeting indebte...

Midwest mystery: Iowa man still missing, 2 weeks after semi holding baby pigs was found on highway

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:27:32 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — David Schultz’s semi-truck was found two weeks ago on a rural highway in northwest Iowa, its trailer still filled with baby pigs he was transporting. Schultz’s wallet and phone were inside, and his jacket was on the side of the road.But Schultz was nowhere to be found, and his Nov. 21 disappearance outside Sac City remains a mystery.His wife said something must have gone wrong, calling the 53-year-old father of two a dependable man with a strong work ethic.“This is not something David would do,” Sarah Schultz told the Sioux City Journal. “He would never leave. His family is his life.”Hundreds of people have volunteered to search for Schultz, but after scouring 100,000 acres near the highway, the effort was paused as searchers considered their next steps. Leaders of the search were convinced they would have found Schultz if he had wandered off because of a medical emergency or some other problem.Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation is assisting the Sac Co...

Coroner’s inquest watches video of inmate who says he witnessed struggle

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:27:32 GMT

An inmate at an Ontario jail told provincial police he saw correctional officers beating Soleiman Faqiri “as hard as they could” after getting him inside his cell, a coroner’s inquest into the mentally ill man’s death heard Tuesday.The inquest watched a video recording of John Thibeault’s interview with Ontario Provincial Police on Aug. 14, 2019. Thibeault was being held at the Central East Correctional Centre in the cell across from Faqiri’s and told police he witnessed part of the events leading up to the man’s death on Dec. 15, 2016.In the interview, Thibeault told the investigator the door to Faqiri’s cell was open and he had a clear view through a window in the door of his own cell.He recalled that Faqiri was taken to the door by a group of correctional officers, and said one of them whispered something in Faqiri’s ear that made the man not want to go inside. Thibeault said one of the officers pepper sprayed Faqiri in the fa...

Poland’s former President Lech Walesa, 80, hospitalized with COVID-19

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:27:32 GMT

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Lech Walesa, Poland’s 80-year-old former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has been hospitalized with a bad case of COVID-19, an aide said Tuesday. A post on Walesa’s Facebook shows him on a hospital bed with an oxygen mask on, with a caption that says “I have been hit by Covid.” The aide, Marek Kaczmar, told Polish media that Walesa is seriously ill, but under good care in a hospital in Gdansk, the Baltic port city where he lives. It’s Walesa’s second bout of COVID. Starting in 1980, Walesa spearheaded Poland’s pro-democracy Solidarity movement that nine years later led to the peaceful ouster of communism from Poland and inspired other countries to shed Moscow’s domination. In 1983 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1990-95 he served as democratic Poland’s first popularly elected president. The Associated Press

Families of 3 Black victims in fatal Florida Dollar General shooting plead for end to gun violence

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:27:32 GMT

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Lawyers and family members of three Black people who were fatally shot during a racially motivated attack at a north Florida Dollar General on Tuesday blamed the national chain for not providing security to protect customers and employees.They are suing the store’s landlord, operator and security contractor for negligence, noting that lax security led to the deaths of Angela Carr, 52, Jerrald Gallion, 29, and A.J. Laguerre, 19, in August. On Tuesday morning, a team of lawyers — including civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, as well as Michael Haggard and Adam Finkel — stood alongside family members of the three people killed that day, pleading for the gun violence to stop.“These families have lost everything. And they are here so that this never happens again,” Crump said. “We have a gigantic gun violence problem in the United States of America, and these families right here have had enough.”The gunman, 21-year-old Ryan Palmeter, had attempted to ent...

Sault Ste. Marie police officer facing sexual assault charges: SIU

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:27:32 GMT

A northern Ontario police officer is facing sexual assault charges after an investigation into alleged incidents that took place last year. Ontario’s police watchdog says an investigation found sufficient evidence to charge a Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., police officer with two counts of sexual assault in relation to two women.The Special Investigations Unit says the alleged incidents took place in December 2022.It says the officer is required to appear in court in Sault Ste. Marie on Jan. 8.The SIU says it will not provide more information about the case because the matter is before the courts.The SIU is an independent agency that investigates the conduct of police officers that may have resulted in death, serious injury, sexual assault or the discharge of a firearm at a person.

2 plead guilty in fire at Atlanta Wendy’s restaurant during protest after Rayshard Brooks killing

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:27:32 GMT

ATLANTA (AP) — Two of three people charged with arson in the burning of the Wendy’s restaurant in Atlanta where a police officer fatally shot Rayshard Brooks in June 2020 have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors.Chisom Kingston, Natalie White and John Wade were arrested on arson charges within weeks of the fire, which came in the midst of weeks of upheaval and protest across the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death under the knee of a Minneapolis police office. A Fulton County grand jury in January 2022 indicted the trio on two counts each of first-degree arson and one count of conspiracy to commit first-degree arson.Kingston and White on Thursday pleaded guilty to the charges and each received a sentence of five years of probation, a $500 fine and 150 hours of community service to be completed with a nonprofit organization within the first year of probation, according to online court records. They were each sentenced under Georgia’s first offende...

House Speaker Johnson is insisting on sweeping border security changes in a deal for Ukraine aid

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:27:32 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson told fellow Republicans on Tuesday that sweeping changes to U.S. border policy would be their “hill to die on” in negotiations over President Joe Biden’s nearly $106 billion package for the wars in Ukraine and Israel and other security needs.Johnson delivered the hard-line message Tuesday morning before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s video address to senators, a classified briefing that the Biden administration organized to underscore how desperately the aid is needed. Biden is pushing a reluctant Congress to approve the military, economic and humanitarian aid package, but the injection of border security into the negotiations has made progress difficult.“The battle is for the border,” Johnson said at a news conference. “We do that first as a top priority, and we’ll take care of these other obligations.” Moments earlier, Johnson told GOP lawmakers in a closed-door meeting that their “hill to die on” in the negotiati...

Vice President Harris breaks nearly 200-year-old record for Senate tiebreaker votes, casts her 32nd

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:27:32 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris broke a nearly 200-year-old record for casting the most tiebreaking votes in the Senate when she voted Tuesday to confirm a new federal judge in Washington, D.C.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, called Harris’ 32nd tiebreaking vote a “great milestone.”The previous recordholder was John C. Calhoun, who cast 31 tiebreaking votes during his eight years as vice president, from 1825 to 1832. Harris, a Democrat, tied Calhoun’s record in July.Schumer presented Harris with a golden gavel after Tuesday’s vote. Harris, who beamed as she made history from the Senate dais, said she was “truly honored.”Casting tiebreaker votes is among the only constitutional duties for vice presidents, and Harris has been repeatedly called on to break deadlocks because the Senate is closely divided between Democrats and Republicans. The pace of Harris’ votes dropped off this year, when Democrats expanded their slim majorit...

Italian prosecutors seek 6 suspects who allegedly aided the escape of Russian man sought by the US

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:27:32 GMT

MILAN (AP) — Milan prosecutors have identified six suspects who allegedly aided the escape from Italian custody of a Russian national a day after an Italian court ruled in favor of extraditing him to the United States to face sanctions-busting charges.Artyom Uss, the 40-year-old son of the governor of Russia’s Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia, was arrested as he was about to board a flight to Istanbul in October 2022. He was under house arrest with an electronic bracelet near Milan when he escaped five months later. He resurfaced in Russia in April.Uss is wanted in the U.S. on charges of smuggling Western technologies in violation of Western sanctions and money laundering. He faces up to 30 years in prison, Milan prosecutors said.Italian prosecutors said some of the suspects helped Uss reach the Slovenian border by car. The six are identified as an Italian national of Bosnian origin and five foreign nationals living abroad. No names or information on their whereabouts were given.Italia...